Long Beach State announced today that the men’s basketball team will add Ryan Hellenthal as the director of basketball operations, taking over for former coach Jay Morris who became an assistant at Cal State Northridge over the summer. Hellenthal’s last two seasons were spent as director of basketball operations for the Boise State Broncos.

Hellenthal is the newest addition to a coaching staff that has by now established itself as the face of the Long Beach State men’s basketball program. Head coach Dan Monson and assistants Vic Couch, Rod Palmer and Eric Brown are entering their fourth season together at The Beach, in many ways a make-or-break year after coming off a Big West Conference finals appearance.

A former junior college assistant coach, Hellenthal is no stranger to winning himself. He won 60 games in three seasons as the head coach of Garden City Community College in Kansas, bringing the school its first Jayhawk West Conference Championship since 1952. He took an assistant coach job at Coffeyville Community College in 2005 and the team went 90-19 in three seasons, while Hellenthal has been credited with recruiting the Preseason NJCAA Player of the Year and five all-conference players. Coffeyville was ranked in the Top 25 nationally during all of Hellenthal’s three seasons there.

At Boise State, Hellenthal handled film, travel preparation and the program budget, also overseeing the team’s academics and on-campus recruiting.